Trial date set for woman ‘who zipped boyfriend in suitcase and left him to die’

Florida woman arrested four years ago on murder charges will go on trial in October

Death in Suitcase (Orlando Sentinel)

A Florida woman charged with leaving her boyfriend to die after he was zipped into a suitcase in their home will go on trial in October following a hearing on Friday.

A 7 October trial date was set during a court hearing for Sarah Boone in state court in Orlando, almost four years after her arrest.

Ms Boone, 46, has pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charge.

Ms Boone initially told detectives with the Orange County Sheriff's Office that she and her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, had been playing hide and seek in the residence they shared in Winter Park, Florida, when they thought it would be funny for Torres to get into the suitcase.

They had been drinking, and she decided to go to sleep, thinking that Torres could get out of the suitcase on his own, she told detectives, according to an arrest report.

When she woke up the next morning, she didn't find Torres but then remembered he was in the suitcase. She unzipped the suitcase, and found him unresponsive, the arrest report said.

However, detectives charged Boone with murder after they found videos on her cell phone showing Torres yelling that he couldn't breathe in the suitcase and calling out Boone's name, according to the arrest report.

“Yeah, that's what you do when you choke me,” Ms Boone responded in one of the videos, according to the report. “Oh, that's what I feel like when you cheat on me.”

An autopsy report said that Torres had scratches on his back and neck and contusions to his shoulder, skull and forehead from blunt force trauma, as well as a cut near his busted lip.

Since her arrest, Ms Boone has gone through several attorneys, contributing to the delay in her trial.